Kan også læses på: Dansk

Locals and tourists in Copenhagen

It’s a cliché, but all architects love maps! They have an ability to reveal truths and lead to deeper understandings of physical places that can be endlessly fascinating. Another cliché is that everyone loves having our prejudices confirmed. This one is both and funny too.

This brilliant map shows pictures taken by locals with blue dots, tourists with red dots and yellow dots could be both.

Nyhavn and the town hall square explodes in red. Amalienborg (royal residence) is clearly a hot spot as is Kastellet (the old citadel), Christiania, Tivoli and Rosenborg. The infrastructural arteries stands out in blue, i.e. the bike routes.

It’s not surprising that locals and tourists have different patterns. But actually they are much more different in some other cities: Paris, London, Stockholm, Vienna. And yet other cities have almost no locals taking pictures: Venice, Rome, Prague.

Copenhageners enjoy their own city, and you can tell during spring and summer by the number of people hanging out in the streets and squares and parks. Taking pictures and sharing them. And so does tourists.

In my experience especially the central harbour area is a shared space between them, and massive yellow on the map is in that way telling a story about water as a resource of quality of life, how the old industrial areas have turned into extremely valuable public spaces, for citizens and guests alike.

Go blue

If you don’t know by now, I’m organizing architecture tours in Copenhagen, for locals and for visitors, for individuals and for groups. If you’d like to escape the red tourist traps, I can lead the way into the blue…

Check out my group tours here or book a ticket for a public tour.

The map is thought up, generated and generously shared by Eric Fischer here at Flickr.

I found it in this post at Brilliant Maps.